B.C. fire department raising money for member who lost home in Jasper wildfire

Comox Fire Rescue is rallying around a former colleague who fled the Jasper, Alta., wildfire in a newly purchased truck that's since broken down. His family home, where he was living, has burned and he's now stuck in Kamloops.

“The compassion of people that’s been helping, it’s been overwhelming,” says former volunteer firefighter Terry Lonsberry.

Lonsberry moved back to Jasper in 2020 after a serious eye injury cut his firefighting career in Comox short. He’s also been diagnosed with myocarditis and had been planning to winter on Vancouver Island to alleviate some of the symptoms he experiences in the harsher cold weather.

But he says everything has changed since his family home burned when the July wildfire ravaged parts of the scenic tourist town.

“It was security. Any time things got too rough in the world, you could always go home and for the first time in my life I don’t have that anymore,” says Lonsberry. “There’s nothing to go back to for me.”

He’s now trying to get to Parksville and make the island home again, but a truck he had bought for the trip west has since broken down. And he says the repair bill exceeds the $18,000 he paid for the used truck.

“It was just a complete lemon,” says Lonsberry. “I should’ve had it inspected and didn’t.”

Back in the Comox Valley, his old firefighting department saw the hardship he was facing and decided to help – providing some funds to him directly and launching a GoFundMe campaign.

“The fire family is usually a pretty tight-knit family and Terry was a fairly active member here and made lots of friends,” says Comox Fire Chief Gord Schreiner. “We’re really feeling for him and hoping that he can stitch everything back together and come out with some form of a decent life when this is over.”

Terry says he has hope – and he’s grateful for the outpouring of support.

“I’ve got my helmet sitting right there and it’s truly one of my prized possessions,” says Lonsberry. “I didn’t want to stop [firefighting] when I did. I’ve always been the person that tries to help other people… It’s a weird feeling to be stuck in a situation where I need help.”

He says he’s at roughly the halfway mark of paying the vehicle repair bill that will get him on the move again.